Saturday, 3 March 2012

Ojukwu:A final goodbye and an emotional tribute by his wife.

How do I sum up 23 years in one page? I don't know. How do I describe
you? I cannot. Not in any depth. Not for anybody else - you were my
husband, my brother, my friend, my child. I was your queen, and it was
an honour to have served you.

You were the lion of my history books, the leader of my nation when we
faced extinction, the larger-than-life history come to, my life -
living, breathing legend. But unlike the history books, you defied all
preconceptions. You made me cry from laughter with your jokes, many
irreverent. You awed me with your wisdom. You melted my heart with your
kindness. Your impeccable manners made Prince Charming a living
reality. Your fearlessness made you the man I dreamt of all my life and
your total lack of seeking public approval before speaking your mind
separated you from mere mortals.Every year that I spent with you was an adventure - no two days were
the same. With you, I was finally able to soar on wings wider than the
ocean. With you I was blessed with the best children God in heaven had
to give. With you, I learnt to face the world without fear and learnt
daily the things that matter most. Your disdain for money was novel -
sometimes funny, other times quite alarming. It mattered not a whit to
you. Your total dedication to your people - Ndi-Igbo - was so absolute
that really, very little else mattered. You never craved anybody's
praise as long as you believed that you were doing right and even in
the face of utmost danger, you never relented from speaking truth to
power - to you, what after all, was power? It was not that conferred by
the gun, nor that stolen from the ballot box. No. You understood that
power transcended all that. Power is the freedom to be true to yourself
and to God, no matter the cost.

It is freedom from fear. It is freedom from bondage. It is freedom to
seek the wellbeing of your people just because you love them. It is the
ability to move a whole nation without a penny as inducement nor a gun
to force them. When an entire nation can rise up for one person for no
other reason than that they love him and know he is their leader -
sans gun, money, official title or any strange paraphernalia - that is
power.

To try to contain you in words is futile. You span the breadth of human
experience - full of laughter, joy, kindness and sometimes, almost
childlike in your ability to find something good in almost everyone and
every situation. You could flare up at any injustice and in the next
instant, sing military songs to the children. You could analyse a
situation with incredible swiftness and accuracy. In any generation,
there can only be one like you. You were that one star. You were a child
of destiny, born for no other time than the one you found yourself in.
Destined to lead your people at the time total extinction was staring
us in the face. There was no one else. You gained nothing from it. You
used all the resources you had just to wage a war of survival. You
fought to keep us alive when we were being slaughtered like rams for no
reason. Today, we find ourselves in the same situation but you are not
here. You fought that we might live. The truth is finally coming out
and even those who fought you now acknowledge that you had no choice.
For your faithfulness, God kept you and brought you home to your
people.

You loved Nigeria. You spent so much of your waking moments devising
ways through which Nigeria could progress to Tai-Two!!! You were the
eternal optimist, always hoping that one day, God will touch His people
and give us one Vision and the diligence to work towards the dream. It
never came to pass in your lifetime. Instead, the disaster you
predicted if we continued on the same path has come home to roost. You
always saw so clearly. Your words are indelibly preserved for this
generation to read and learn and perhaps heed and turn. You always said
the dry bones will rise again. But you always hoped we would not
become the dry bones by our actions. Above all, you feared for your own
people, crying out against the relentless oppression that has not
ceased since the end of the war and saddened by the acceptance of this
position by your own people. In death, you have awakened the spirit
that we thought had died. Your people are finally waking up.

At home, you were the father any child would dream of having. At no
point did our children have to wonder where you were. You were ever at
their disposal, playing with them, teaching them of a bygone era,
teaching them of the world they live in and giving them the total
security of knowing you were always present.

In mercy, God gave me a year to prepare for the inevitable. I could
never have survived an instant departure. In mercy, God ensured that
your final week on earth was spent only with me and that on your last
day, you were back to your old self. I cannot but thank God for the joy
of that final day - the jokes, the laughter, the songs. It was a
lifetime packed into a few hours, filled with hope that many tomorrows
would follow and that we would be home for Christmas. You deceived me.
You were so emphatic that we would be going home. I did not know you
meant a different home. The swiftness of your departure remains
shocking to me. You left on the day I least expected. But I cannot
fight God. He owns your life and mine. I know that God called you home
because every other time it seemed you were at death's door, you fought
like the lion that God made you and always prevailed. In my eyes, even
death was no match for you. But who can say 'no' to the Almighty God?
You walked away with Him, going away with such peace that I can only
bow to God's sovereignty. Your people have remembered. The warrior of
our land has gone. The flags are lowered in your honour. Our hearts are
laden with grief.

But I will trust that the living God who gave you to me will look after
me and our children. Through my sadness, the memories will always
shine bright and beautiful. Adieu, my love, my husband, my lion,
Ikemba, Amuma na Egbe Igwe, Odenigbo Ngwo. Eze-Igbo Gburugburu, Ibu
dike. Chukwu gozie gi, Chukwu debe gi. Anyi ga afu na omesia.These were the words of Bianca.